The beneficial effects of employing various continuous fabric belts in the formation of various paper products are well known. Typically, paper machines use three different and very distinct types of woven fabric belts to make paper. These fabric belts are placed in three different locations on a paper machine and are typically referred to as forming, press and dryer belts. As a general matter, these continuous fabric belts are usually 30 to 40 feet in width, and up to 200 feet in length, depending upon their relative position in the paper machine. The surface speeds of these continuous fabric belts is normally in excess of 60 mph.
As should be understood, the paper machine fabric belts main job is to support the newly formed paper sheet and to remove water from the paper sheet in a very exact and consistent manner, thereby producing a clean and high quality sheet of paper. Those skilled in the art will recognize that forming belts must be fabricated from a woven forming fabric in such a fashion so as to provide a high quality surface. Such continuous forming belts must have a woven seam to join the fabric ends together in order to form a continuous belt.
In the process of forming this continuous forming belt, a first seam strip is cut off one of the ends of a forming fabric. Thereafter the weft threads or as sometimes called, cross machine threads are then removed from each of the fabric ends leaving the warp, or machine direction threads by themselves. These warp threads are typically supported and held in place by a seaming band. The seam strip is then prepared by removing the warp threads. This seam strip is now placed in an automatic seaming machine harness that is mounted to a jacquard head. Using the jacquard head to reproduce the exact same weave pattern as the fabric body, it is possible to recreate the weaving pattern and by using this seam strip, introduce the warp ends from each side of the fabric body to the seam strip using various insertion points where the two ends meet. Through this process it is possible to make the fabric endless, thereby forming a belt which is then later installed on a paper machine.
In the prior art process which is utilized heretofore, fabrics which will be used in continuous forming or dryer belts must first be prepared by removing weft threads from the seam area of the fabric. While various devices are currently in existence to automatically remove warp threads from the seam strip, the current methodology still requires that an operator, by hand, manually remove any remaining weft threads from the seam strip region. This is a very time consuming process. It also has a negative ergonomic impact on the operator who must maintain their body in a bent-over condition for many hours. This posture, of course, promotes back and shoulder pain and other discomforts.
While assorted devices and other methodology have been employed to try to reduce operator discomfort and increase the speed with which such endless fabric belts may be fabricated, such efforts have failed to produce a device which eliminates substantial operator involvement in the removal of weft threads from the edge of the fabric.
Therefore, an apparatus for removing weft threads from the edge of a fabric is the subject matter of the present application.